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Oh, Enough Already

I’m not whining again. I am just stating a fact. It is WAY too hot here.

Some might say it’s just the dog days of summer. I’m not buying that, though. I have dogs, remember. Even they think it is way too (insert your own expletive) hot!

Seriously. It was like 80 degrees this morning with about 500% humidity. The definition of sultry. The air was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Come on Fall!

The cartoon used in today’s post was created by James Pendergrast. I have to give credit where credit is due, right?

Know what yesterday was? Thirsty Third Thursday. Amy and I met up with Shannon at her place in the city (Baltimore) for some yummy, fruity margaritas followed by a trip to Brewer’s Art. On a nice, Fall day, it would have been a pleasant walk. Nevertheless, it was nice. I think I have a new food to obsess over… Rosemary Garlic Fries. I ate a cheeseburger, too, which was one of the best I’d had in a long time. But the fries were to die for. Hand-cut into shoestrings (think julienned, but slightly bigger), deep-fried in canola oil, seasoned with rosemary garlic salt and served with a side of mayo. YUM.

I wish I’d had my camera. I’ll take it with me for September’s TTT for sure. It’s the last time Shannon will be with us for a while. Something I’d rather not think about right now. So…

Wanna know what the air outside looks like right now? Check out this pic.

Enough already, for this heat and this blog post. A girl has to earn a living you know.

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I Hate Crying at the Start of a Day, But…

… this is a happy one.

Just about a year ago, Amy told me about some ot the blogs she’d been reading, one of which was NieNie Dialogues. NieNie (Stephanie) is a beautiful young—only 28!—mother of four who, with her husband, survived a near-fatal plane crash almost a year ago. The pilot, a dear friend of theirs, was killed. To get the gist of it, watch this news report.

It has been a long, slow and very painful recovery for NieNie and her family. Almost her entire body was burned. She’s had a lot of struggles over the past year. As I am sure you can imagine, one of the things she has struggled with is how different she looks. Her children didn’t recognize her. They were afraid of her. Can you imagine how that must have felt? But that’s just surface stuff. She has also endured, and is still suffering with, a tremendous amount of pain.

As with most people who have followed their story, I am very impressed with her perseverance. And her bravery. I mean, really. I am in awe of her.

Just recently, with the 1-year anniversary of the crash looming, she decided to hike the relatively short but difficult Y Mountain Trail in or near Provo, Utah, which gains 1,000 feet of elevation.

It was this post on her blog that made me cry: NieNie At the Top. And all that’s there are pictures. But then, she’s a very talented photographer, too. I was just so happy to read about her triumph.

And I was thrilled to see this picture, the first she has posted of herself since the accident.

Really, look at it. She is the most beautiful woman I sort of know.

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You Know You’re Old When…

You take your baby to the airport. You haven’t bought his ticket. Not only did you not provide funds for the ticket, you didn’t book the flight or even lend him your credit card to make the purchase. You didn’t make a little name tag, complete with address, to safety-pin to his backpack. You gave him ZERO cash. And, the next to last thing you said when dropping him off is, “Bring me coffee!”

I’ll get to the coffee in a sec. Most of you have seen Eric in the last few years and know he’s no baby. Not only will he be 20 in October—OMG, no more teenager!—he’s a big boy.

Here’s a photo taken by my sister-in-law, Sharen, shortly after I delivered my parents to the anniversary party. That’s me in the middle, wearing the brightly colored shirt. That’s my “baby” on the far left. The perspective makes him look only slightly bigger than he really is. I haven’t measured lately, but I am thinking he’s at least 6 feet. My nephew, Josh—the one wearing pink—is only 13. We grow them tall in this family!

As for the coffee comment… let me just start by saying I am no coffee connoisseur. I can’t tell you why I like a particular coffee. I also cannot describe the flavor in proper coffee terms, e.g., bold, bright, roasty, acrid, malty, etc. I just know what coffee I like.

I am very brand-loyal, too. Know what it is?

Seattle’s Best. That is, hands down, my favorite brand of coffee. How much do I like it? So much that I remember the very first time I tasted it. (Now, as much as I love a good Java Chip Frappuccino, I cannot tell you the first time I had one of Starbucks’ infamous frappuccinos.)

Anyway, I think it was 2000 when Hubby, Eric and I visited Washington state. Our first stop was Seattle. We didn’t spend a lot of time there, but we did go to the Space Needle. Oddly enough, I have a picture from that day. Hubby scanned it at some point and saved it for me. Eric was 10 at the time. We all look so young!

After the Space Needle and before hitting the Cascade Loop Scenic Highway, we stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast. It was there that I had my first taste of Seattle’s Best.

It wasn’t until recently that Seattle’s Best became available in grocery stores here on the East Coast. I was thrilled. I was even more thrilled when I got a taste of their Vanilla Bean and Hazelnut varieties.

Vanilla Bean is impossible to find locally. I only had it once, having purchased it on sale at Target after Christmas a couple of years ago. The Hazelnut, on the other hand, has been my coffee of choice for several years now. But it is getting harder and harder to find.

So, knowing Eric would be in Seattle, I told him to bring me some coffee.

Yes, I could but it online, but it ain’t cheap. If he can get it for less there, he’ll have to buy me multiple bags. At the very least, he’d better come home with some Vanilla Bean.

His trip to Seattle isn’t the only reason I have coffee on the brain. I just used the very last of my Hazelnut coffee. I’ll have to go to Food Lion today, the only local grocer I know who sells it, to see if I can get more. I hope I can.

Starting a work day, especially a day like today that I KNOW will be busy, just wouldn’t be the same without it.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and some very cool person from the Seattle’s Best company (which was acquired by Starbucks in 2003, by the way) will read my Blog and send me some freebies.

I could be the East Coast Ambassador for Seattle’s Best Coffee. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

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A Business Name That Fits

I don’t do many non-PC posts. This is a family blog after all. Sort of.

So I won’t be overtly offensive. You’ll either get this or you won’t.

This sign was on the back of one of those for-hire vans. Hubby, Eric and I were on our way to my parents’ house to pick them up for their party.

I think you’d find this way funnier had I gotten a picture showing the name of the business hand-painted on the side of the white van.

We thought it pretty ironic, and comical, that the company name was PB Short Bus.

If you don’t get the irony, chances are you don’t know what short bus means.

Sorry it’s a crappy photo. Hubby was driving on the horribly pot-holed streets of Baltimore City.

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Finished, Done, Caput… Finally!

Hubby and I have been “almost finished” construction of the WV Place for over a year now. There was one big thing that still needed to be done and that was covering the fascia board with aluminum. There’s probably a term for that, but I don’t know what it is.

Fascia is the trim around the edges of the house, right under the roof line. Your rain gutters usually hang in front of it. If you have rain gutters, that is. We don’t.

Anyway…

Neither of us really felt like doing the work. It involved either using very tall ladders, scaffolding or a mechanical man-lift thing, which we would have had to rent. After all the years of doing 99% of the work ourselves, we just plain could not bring ourselves to do it.

Hubby has been doing little things here and there all year. I have done squat. We’ve really been enjoying the relaxation. And the recent bike trips have been great.

Finally, instead of risking total deterioration of the wood, we said “screw it” and hired a professional. He managed to do in one day what would’ve taken us at least a weekend, I think, since we were so totally unmotivated.

That was the last big thing. One little thing we’d been wanting to do, too, was paint the door. Finally, Hubby told me to pick a durn paint color already. And he painted it.

Now, we pronounce the place FINISHED.

You can check out the complete 2009 update if you like. That’s another thing I finally got around to doing. Yesterday was a good day for it. I planned on sitting around all day anyway, to recuperate from the anniversary party madness. Not that it was drunken mayhem or anything, it was just a very busy week leading up to the party, which by the way was probably a huge contributor to my lack of sleep.

I at least have to share an image of our awesome red door here…

Doesn’t it just make you want to come visit? I sure hope so. We’ve been trying to get folks to come and enjoy the place with us, but everyone is busy, busy, busy! If you’re interested in a visit, just let us know. We’re going to stop asking people soon. We’re starting to feel like nags…

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go run 3 miles. Wish me luck!

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Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad II

So, did I mention that yesterday was my parents’ 50th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY? Well, it was. And we didn’t just take them out to lunch, we threw them a big party! I couldn’t mention that here ’cause it was a surprise. And Mom reads my blog.

Here they are on their wedding day, August 15, 1959. He was 21 and she was 18.

How could we not have a party? Fifty years of marriage is quite an accomplishment these days, as evidenced by the rarity of 50th anniversary party decorations.

And here they are now. They look pretty happy, don’t they?

As far as the surprise goes, Dad was clueless to the very end. Mom knew there was going to be a party, she just didn’t know when. To throw her off, I told her I procrastinated so long, I couldn’t find a place to have it. So we were just going to have a little party at my house (how boring and anticlimactic!) on August 22.

She didn’t know what was going on either until she saw a friend of hers in the restaurant parking lot. But that was okay. The party was still a smashing success.

As you can see, quite a few people attended. Their two favorite neighbors, Henry and Sheila, are at the table with Hubby, my kids and my nephew.

Some of our family on Dad’s side made it down from Pennsylvania. Mom’s sisters, brother-in-law, and some nephews, all from the Baltimore area, made it, too.

Here’s Dad with some of his friends from the Corner Crab House.

Even their doctor (they share the same primary care doc) and his wife attended.

I was pretty busy running around playing hostess and trying to take pictures at the same time. I didn’t get any great candids. Maybe my sister-in-law, Sharen, who was also taking pics, got some better images.

People get a bit weirded out when folks like me are walking around indiscriminately shooting pics. Sometimes, when they see me coming, I get looks like this…

From left to right here are my cousin (Tim), brother (Tom) and Tim’s wife (Karen). After I saw this image, I told the boys they were looking evil and that I had to try again.

I guess this is why people hire photographers to capture images at events like this.

All in all, it was a great day, which they topped off with a drive home in their nicely decorated car…

I wonder if anyone honked at them as they made their way home? I sure hope so. I’d honk if I saw this car driving down the road!

All in all, I think it was a 50th anniversary party they’ll remember for a long time.